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The End of Illness

Overview

What if everything you thought about health was wrong?

Can we live robustly until our last breath? Do we have to suffer from debilitating conditions and sickness? Is it possible to add more vibrant years to our lives? And has the time come for us to stop thinking about disease as something the body “gets” or “has” but rather to think of it as something the body does?

In The End of Illness, David B. Agus, MD, one of the world’s leading cancer doctors, researchers, and technology innovators, tackles these fundamental questions, challenging long-held wisdoms and dismantling misperceptions about what “health” means. With a blend of storytelling, landmark research, and provocative ideas, Dr. Agus presents an eye-opening picture of the complex and endlessly enigmatic human body, and all of the ways it works—and fails—ultimately showing us how a new perspective on our individual health will allow each of us to achieve that often elusive but now reachable goal of a long, healthy life.

This indispensable book is not only a manifesto—a call for revising the way we think about health—it’s also filled with practical but impossible-to-ignore suggestions that may surprise readers, including:

How taking multivitamins and supplements could significantly increase our risk for diseases like cancer over time.

Why sitting down most of the day, despite a strenuous morning workout, can be as bad as or worse than smoking.

How sneaky sources of daily inflammation—from high heels to the common cold—can lead to a fatal heart attack, and even rob us of our sanity.

How three inexpensive medications—aspirin, statins, and an annual flu vaccine—can substantially change the course of our health for the better.

How taking shortcuts to health via blending fruits and vegetables, and sometimes even by purchasing what we think is “fresh,” could be shortchanging our health.

How to scrutinize and many times dismiss scare tactics and hype promoted by the media.

The single most important thing we can do today to preserve our health and happiness that costs absolutely nothing.

Dr. Agus also offers insights and access to breathtaking and powerful new technologies that promise to transform medicine in our generation. In the course of offering recommendations, he emphasizes his belief that there is no “right” answer, no master guide that’s “one size fits all.” Each one of us must get to know our bodies in uniquely personal ways, and he shows us exactly how to do that so that we can individually create a plan to live longer. This groundbreaking approach will change not only how we care for ourselves but also how we develop the next generation of treatments and cures.